Is International Cyber Warfare a Real Threat?

The media, the security industry and some members of congress have pounced on reports about the potential for hackers to wage cyber war on the United States, wreaking havoc on our nation's infrastructure. Brooke talks to Jerry Brito, the director of the Technology Policy Program at George Mason University's Mercatus program, who says that the rhetoric around cyber warfare doesn't square with reality.

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Comments [3]

joel

@Eno-Master: I guess you read the synopsis of this story without listening to it. Brito is perfectly clear that threats exist and that incidents have occurred, but states quite clearly that the "cyber-sky is falling" mentality of some in government is based on the most extreme hypotheticals, not reality.

We can certainly attempt to protect ourselves from every conceivable threat possible, but we probably can't afford to.

While the effects of cyber warfare have not reached the United States or most of the world. It has happened. Everyone is a target. Saying it won't happen to the US or to you, is the same as saying that since Japan is the only country to experience a nuclear attack, then the rest of the world does not need to worry about nuclear weapons. Either nuclear or cyber warfare can happen to any country. The only real question is: When? If we do nothing now, then it will be just that much worse when it does happen. Each of us does have a responsibility to protect ourselves and hence all of us from cyber compromise. I have been given arguments that "There is not anything of value on my computer." Just making the CPU cycles unintentionally available for some nefarious use it more than reason enough to protect your computer. That being said, the way in which this is legislated should be done with much care. The idea of logging into the internet will and should raise fears of "Big Brother". Further, who is to say that cyber warfare is not happening now? It is true that power plants are not self destructing and trains are not colliding, and traffic lights are not going green in all directions. There are groups/networks of compromised computers ('botnets) that are under the control of someone. That are stealing passwords, PINs, sending spam. Someone unknown, that is. So who is to say that a government is not controlling them? Is this cyber warfare?